For years dissident members of the American Psychological
Association, along with non-member psychologists, have fought the
associations policies promoting psychologist participation in military
and intelligence interrogations. These dissidents argued that
psychologists aiding interrogations were sometimes aiding torture and
other abuse. Further, even in cases where the interrogations were not
themselves abusive, psychologist participation violated the
profession's principle ethical injunction, to "Do No Harm."

The APA leadership, in contrast, claimed that psychologists were necessary to prevent harm
to detainees, though they never explained how this prevention would
actually occur. Meanwhile, the press and official documents gradually
revealed the fact that psychologists, rather than preventing harm, were
central actors in designing and implementing the "enhanced
interrogation" techniques used by the CIA in its torture centers and by
certain military interrogators at Guantanamo and elsewhere.

The APA response was to deny the facts as long as possible. When
pure denial was no longer viable, they resorted to admitting that a
very few psychologists acted against their professional ethics in
aiding abuses. They have never commented on the role bof psychology as
a profession when members of the ptofession are designing and
implementing a systematic governmental program of abuse. Rather, APA
leaders did everything in their power to obscure the issues in order to
maintain their support for psychologist participation in detainee
interrogations.

Yesterday a group of APA members filed a formal complaint with APA
President Bray protesting what they regard as systematic violations of
APA procedures and by-laws by the association in pursuit of its
position that psychologists should participate in Bush-era detainee
interrogations.

The extent of procedural violations is a major piece of evidence
behind dissidents beliefs that APA leadership were knowingly complicit
in the Bush program of detainee abuse. The other major pieces of
evidence are the APA's systematic refusal to acknowledge psychologist
participation in abuses until the public record made denial impossible,
and the massive resistance of APA leadership to any attempts by members
to change policy. When APA members, by a vote of 59% to 41%, voted to condemn psychologist participation in illegal detention sites like Guantanamo, the APA accepted the formal wording but worked to obfuscate its application to any actual existing sites.

Many APA members have resigned in disgust at the association's
leadership's duplicitous role. Yet other dissidents remain members and
are pursuing all available means of redress allowed by association
rules. This formal protest is their latest effort. Under APA rules,
President Bray is to appoint a Committee on Constitutional issues, with
membership acceptable to complainants, to investigate. APA rules
stipulate that this Committee should be formed and operate
expeditiously. The ball is now in President Bray's court.

Here is the letter sent to President Bray [The letter is also available as a pdf here.]:

We,
the undersigned members of the American Psychological Association
(APA), hereby submit a Formal Complaint and request that you appoint a
three-member ad hoc Committee on Constitutional Issues (CCI) to
adjudicate our complaint according to Association Rule 90-1. Under the
Bill of Rights for Members, III.3, "Any individual Member or group of
individual Members who believe their rights as Members of the
Association, as specified in this Article, or any other rights, have
been abridged by actions taken by an element of the Association's
governance structure or any employee or employees of the Association
may seek such remedies as may be provided under procedures established
by the Council of Representatives."

The
Bylaws (I.1) state that one of the objects of the APA is "the
establishment and maintenance of the highest standards of professional
ethics and conduct of the members of the Association." We submit that
the APA Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS)
recommended a controversial new policy based in part on highly
questionable interpretations of the APA Ethics Code. 1
By endorsing this policy, the 2005 Board of Directors made the APA the
sole health care professional organization supporting member
involvement in the interrogation of detainees held under conditions
that violate international law. 2 According to the UN Commission on Human Rights, many detainees have experienced severe suffering amounting to torture. 3
In assuming the role of Behavioral Science Consultant (BSC) to
interrogators, psychologists provided professional legitimacy and
expertise to programs that have come under intense government
investigation and worldwide condemnation. The PENS policy has damaged
the reputation of the profession and the APA and undermined the
obligation of the APA "to advance psychology as a science and
profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human
welfare..." (By-laws Article 1), thereby adversely affecting every
member.

Article
XI. 7, 10 and 12 of the By-laws and Association Rule 30-8 outline the
extensive reviews and checks and balances that any major change in
policy must undergo before adoption. The backgrounds of a Task Force
proposing a far-reaching new policy or guideline should be fully
identified and its recommendations reviewed by several APA committees
and Boards that address the range of relevant issues. APA staff and
those who would directly benefit from the policy should neither
determine the policy nor dominate the process by which it is
established.

Specifically, our complaint involves three interrelated issues:

A. Violation of rules for establishing a new policy

The
secrecy of the PENS deliberations greatly limited information on the
reasoning of the Task Force and the basis of its decisions.

Six
members holding a majority vote were on the active payroll of the US
military and/or intelligence agencies, creating clear bias and multiple
conflicts of interest. 4